Game 159: Three Up, Three Down.

A horrible day for baseball. And not a great one for the Rangers.

This may be the only time I’ve ever been, or ever will be, pretty OK that the Rangers lost a game that counted.

Three Up, Three Down from Oakland 3, Texas 2.

Up First.

There were several smoke bombs and beer cans that found the field in last three innings, but all it caused was a few handfuls of seconds of delay. Frankly, if even a few of the 46,889 fans on hand were more disruptive than that, I would have had no issue with it, as long as nobody got hurt.

I’ve been trying to imagine if a team I loved abandoned me forever when I was eight years old. Or when I had an eight-year-old child.

Today I was almost able to do it. I got emotional a couple times during the game, but none more so than in its immediate aftermath. And what had been an acute sense of empathy morphed into an authentic sadness that I owned for myself.

I am so glad the green and gold didn’t scurry for the clubhouse after Travis Jankowski’s groundout to third, as Rob Manfred had evidently decreed they were to do.

Mark Kotsay’s comments — on the field, surrounded by the entire team, with that extra audience of 46,889 — were awesome.

The Oakland fans deserved a win. Because they’ve been served up a hot, steaming, shitty plate of loss.

Up Second.

In a hostile environment — the right kind, not worse as had been feared — one Vanderbilt first-rounder was besieged by chaos his teammates created. The other was faced with navigating around his own messes.

I’m willing to stick both Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter in the Up’s today, though for different reasons.

Texas lost the game, 3-2, and every A’s run was attributed to Rocker — and every A’s run was a bit tarnished. After Rocker had gotten through the first and second innings in four hitters each, nine-hole hitter Jacob Wilson (who, make no mistake, is going to be a problem before long) led the third off with a grounder to Jonathan Ornelas’s left that he gloved cleanly but threw wildly, pulling Nathaniel Lowe well off the bag. The play was ruled a single; it’s also a play that has to be made.

Two more singles followed to load the bases, after which Marcus Semien made an extraordinary play on a 95.6-mph J.J. Bleday shot up the middle, snaring it backhanded and, as his body crashed to the dirt, cesta’ing it with his glove toward Josh Smith, who was able to scoop it up with a foot on the bag for a 4-6 out that allowed only one run to score rather than two.

Had Ornelas retired Wilson and everything else played out the same (not a certainty, of course), Semien makes that play with runners on first and second rather than with the bases loaded, and the fielder’s choice at second is the second out of the inning, not the first. Shea Langeliers followed with a sacrifice fly to left to bring in the second run of the inning. Under the reconfigured scenario, the flyout would have been the third out of the inning, and the runner on third is trotting back to the dugout with the game still scoreless.

Then, in the fifth, Wilson singled again — and again benefited from sloppy Texas defense, as the ball caromed off Wyatt Langford’s glove and behind him, allowing Wilson to take second. He was still on second minutes later, after Rocker got Lawrence Butler to fly out to center and struck Brent Rooker out on an elevated fastball. Bleday then lofted a lazy fly to shallow left, and Rocker was about to complete five innings, after going four and three in his first two MLB starts.

But Langford lost the ball in the sun — I know, I know, Oakland, end of season, shallow fly, lost in the sun . . . I’m not going to talk about 2012 — and couldn’t recover once he found it. The ball found the grass in front of him, and Wilson scored Oakland’s third, and final, run. Rather than ending the inning, the misplay ended Rocker’s day.

The A’s weren’t chasing Rocker’s curve, just as Toronto refused to last week, and that’s a good thing for him to experience and adjust from. Rocker didn’t walk anyone today, but he allowed seven hits, many coming deep into at-bats after Oakland hitters spit on chase curves. He’s going to have to improve his fastball command and establish the curve for strikes a little more often; big-league hitters who aren’t Mariners aren’t going to chase intentionally spiked curves early in counts like Double-A and Triple-A hitters did. Rocker will learn from days like today.

But he still very easily could have finished five innings without having allowed a run, had his teammates played a crisper game behind him.

As for Leiter, the line score glitters more than Rocker’s, at least from the standpoint that in his 3 ⅓ innings, he didn’t allow a run to score. That’s not to be diminished — it’s his first time to do so as a major leaguer, and today’s 48 pitches were most likely the last he’ll throw this year. (We can now throw out any thought of him making Sunday’s Game 162 start.) But of his three walks, two were four-pitch jobs to lead off the seventh and eighth. Can’t happen. His other free pass was to Rooker, whom he had down in the count 0-2 before missing very badly on ball 3 and ball 4.

Pitches outside the zone aren’t necessarily problematic; they’re often part of the plan. But Leiter’s misses are too often non-competitive, and that too needs to change.

Still, no runs on two singles, recording 10 outs. Leiter’s issues were different from Rocker’s, but there was measurable progress, and that’s a cool thing for a young pitcher to take into the winter.

One thing in common, though, for the Vandy Boys. They were thrown into a playoff environment in the other team’s ballpark, and in their own ways Rocker and Leiter each handled it. That’s a good development.

Up Third.

The offense showed some life in the sixth, with Smith drawing a one-out walk and Langford singling to left, after which Adolis Garcia drove a first-pitch sinker 103.3 mph the other way to score Smith and send Langford to third.

After Oakland brought lefty T.J. McFarland in to face Lowe (appropriately, the pitching change didn’t just reverse the handedness of the A’s pitcher; it also had a T.J. replacing a J.T.), Lowe offered at an 0-1 sinker well below the zone and pounded it into the ground to second — but he was able to outrun the pivot and prevent an inning-ending double play (only after the Rangers successfully challenged a bad out call), allowing Langford to score. Texas had cut the deficit to one.

Leody Taveras then struck out to end the sixth . . . and the Rangers wouldn’t collect another base hit all day.

One Down.

John Fisher.

Two Down.

Whoever at Major League Baseball allowed this to happen.

Three Down.

Like I said above, under the circumstances I don’t hate that the A’s won. But it’s certainly a victory that could have belonged to the Rangers.

Due Up.

A season-ending three in Anaheim.